I rafted this river in 1976, and these 2 glaciers were so jammed into Alsek Lake that the icebergs were stacked up on top of each other. The river pushed its way under the iceberg jams, creating dangerous sucking eddies, and preventing navigation downstream. We had to race over to the edge of the channel, tow our boats back upstream, and carry them in several trips down the dry channel on the right, along the base of the Brabazon Range, to where the river re-emerged from under the ice jam at the mouth of the Grand Plateau Glacier. That dry channel was probably in the foreground under your plane's belly, just this side of the green mountain on the bottom margin of the photo. We had to haul the boats half a mile, then go back and get our packs and haul them. Amazing.

MtnGuide that sounds amazing! Thanks for your comment. They now refer to that area as the "Channel fo Death" if conditions are as you describe, but it was pretty mellow when I visited as the winds had not pushed any icebergs in that direction. It looks like that area is changing quite rapidly, as with may other areas in the world, because of the warming climate.

My theory is that the channel is dry because of tilt-block uplift of the Brabazon Range. Perhaps a fault along the range's base, like along the eastern Sierra. It could even have been lifted suddenly, as by the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964. It is well-documented that that temblor (trembler) triggered avalanches over the next ridges to the South which displaced most of the water in Lituya Bay's cup-shaped basin, into a tidal wave, which lifted several fishing boats and crashed them into the ground. That's at the base of Mt. Fairweather, to the West of that glacier. I'd like to find out if anyone has bothered to climb peaks in the Brabazon Range, other than goat and bear hunters. Easier and more realistic than those monster St. Elias Range peaks. Have you heard of any recorded climbs there?